LeadershipOpportunity
Integral Leadershipin Business and Life Through Coaching
Volume I, No. 3 - May 2001
Table of Contents
- Leadership Quote
- An Invitation
- Leadership Resources
- A Leadership Coaching Tip
- Bay Area Coaches Conference
- Summary (publications worth noting)
- Thanks
Ask about A Leadership Opportunity: An Integral Approach
Leadership Quote
Five Principles of Leadership,
by Roger Enrico, CEO, Pepsico
"… Focus your resources… Assess the strengths of your organization and your people … then focus everything on the greatest opportunities.
… Demand results… A leader should make it crystal clear, every day, that results are the single most important factor in judging an individual’s contribution.
… Listen to your heart. Don’t be blinded by big dollar signs. Pay attention to your instincts and common sense.
… Communicate clearly… In my mind, there’s no substitute for face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball contact. Words by themselves are not enough. If they were, we would all understand Shakespeare a lot better. It takes a great actor … a real person … to make Shakespeare’s lines come alive…Same thing in business and life. When you stand in front of people … whether you’re a teacher, a politician, a business leader or whatever … you are performing. What you say will either be interesting or not. It will either be compelling or not. It will either be persuasive or not…And it’s not just the words. You have to put your whole body and soul into it … to make people feel what you feel … see what you see…Your great idea will never be great until you make others believe in it … and in you.
… Never stop learning…there’s probably no quality more common to the great business leaders I’ve known than relentless intellectual curiosity … an unending hunger for detail."
The subject of leadership fascinates me. That is leadership in any aspect of business and life. In recent years, my focus has been on executive leadership in business.
Do you want to understand more about the relationship between the needs of executives and how coaching can support those needs. So do I. Warren Bennis stated in a speech last year that the integral approach to organizations and management is the wave of the future. This is the direction the most exciting research, new methods, and action will be going.
You are invited to join with me in a 3-month (approximately) R&D process to explore questions about what the integral perspective has to offer coaching executives. Once or twice a week I will send you an email requesting input and/or feedback. In return, I will share all of the results with you.
In addition, I will probably want to explore some of the ideas in my ebook as a part of this process. More specifically, do you want to learn more about how the approach offered in A Leadership Opportunity: An Integral Approach can strengthen how development takes place with the support of coaches? Each member of my R&D team will receive a free copy of A Leadership Opportunity An Integral Approach at some point in the process. The initial questions will be more generic, but you will receive the ebook in plenty of time to review it before we focus more specifically on what it offers.
The subject of leadership is fascinating. That is, leadership in any aspect of business and life is a challenging perspective. How has it impacted your professional life? How has it informed your practice? What new issues are your clients bringing? How well are you prepared to support them?
Key to the development of an innovative approach to executive leadership is the work of Ken Wilber. He has provided a framework that has been useful in rethinking leadership. He has also provided a challenge to find ways to take his very heady concepts, theories, and models and make them real in the world. I believe that is what A Leadership Opportunity: An Integral Approach offers. It is a highly practical, useful, business-savvy guide to leadership in business.
Be advised that Ken Wilber has established an Integral Institute for Business which is sponsoring a massive literature search and classification system, as well as research. We haven’t seen any products of this process yet. I hope we will, soon. In the meanwhile, there is effective work we can do to look at the implications of the integral perspective for effective executive and corporate coaching.
My work is built on the premise that the most effective tool for executive and leadership development is coaching. Certainly, the use of mentoring, development centers, education and training programs have some value. But they will have even more value when supported by coaching.
In recent years, my focus has been on developing executive leadership in business. As an organization development consultant for over twenty years I have consulted to and, even coached (although I did not understand coaching as I do today) leaders of many different types of organizations: manufacturing, health care, mental health, computer hardware, software, telecommunications, construction and government. But it wasn’t until 1997 that I undertook a six-month project with two partners to coach the executives of a high tech company in Silicon Valley.
This was an experience of significant successes and failures. We learned a lot – clients and coaches. My ebook is an attempt to look at the implications of that learning. It describes a way of thinking about executive roles in business that provides a highly practical map for executive leadership development. What is not as clearly spelled out are the methods for using this map in a powerfully generative way. The methods are suggested at the website: www.leadcoach.com.
Who am I looking for? I want individuals who have been or are executives or who have experience coaching executives in business. I would like to get 30 to participate, but I like the open space concept: whoever comes are the right people. I hope you will be one of those people. You do not have to become an expert on Ken Wilber’s work to participate effectively. If you want to read just one thing by him, read Integral Psychology. If you want to go deeper, he has nine volumes of collected works by Shambhala.
Remember: the prize for participating, in addition to a copy of my book is a copy of the material as we develop it. You will need to participate consistently, 90% of the time, however, to move to the next level. What is the next level? I don’t know yet. It could be an edited book, articles in newsletters and professional journals, material for marketing, etc. You will be involved in helping to decide that.
Russ Volckmann
Email russ@leadcoach.com
Developing World-Class Business Coaches
DEVELOPMENT · COACHING · PARTNERS · COMMUNITY · RESULTS
"build capability not codependency"
B-Coach Systems, LLC is a virtual organization that provides a low-cost virtual business coach development system using telephone and web-based project management tools. The system is designed for one coach or a thousand and can be customized to suit individual and organizational needs.
Our program of development for new or practicing business coaches is a six-month program that meets over the telephone twice per week and ends with a face to face retreat opportunity to apply for credentials as a "Certified Business Coach™."
"No matter where your coaching practice is, we can guide you to the next level
In the last issue (please check the archives at www.leadcoach.com for past issues) the subject was leadership on purpose. With this issue I continue to unfold some themes about integral leadership. This approach builds on the models and theories of Ken Wilber to provide a practical, business-savvy approach to executive leadership.
Leaders need to understand the nature of the resources that they have at their disposal to effectively lead a modern business enterprise faced with turbulence and complexity. We need to understand resources on two levels: the individual leader and the collective leadership of the enterprise.
The resources of leadership are different from the organizational resources that we most often think about, be they financial, intellectual property, good will, physical plant, technology or, even, dare I say –people! Leadership resources are often linked to these broader categories of resources, but there is something more, something different.
For the moment, let’s set aside the organization and focus on that group of executives who lead the company.
Note: Yes, leadership can be found anywhere in the company, but the focus of this exploration is executive leadership. Choosing this focus is not a political statement. It is a statement about business reality: executive leadership in business is held accountable for the performance of the business and sinks or swims depending on their performance.
Executive performance is linked to outcomes. In interviews that I have done with members of Boards of Directors of high tech Silicon Valley companies it has been very clear that the CEOs job is tied to performance and outcomes. It is about getting results that earn money for stockholders and doing this in a way that is acceptable to the board.
Executives use resources to help them lead their businesses to achieve these results. Aside from all of the obvious organization resources, what are these executive resources? One set is leadership resources.
Leadership resources must be used to achieve the leadership purpose(s) which serve the business objectives that are current. These are resources that are used principally among the set of leaders within the company. In a later issue I will talk about leadership resources in relation to stakeholders. I have identified four leadership resources:
- Time
- Energy
- Information
- Influence
- Credibility
Time is about the number of minutes in a day and how many of those are spent on different issues and activities. And it is about how the leadership systems are set up in relation to time. What do leaders have in place to support their purpose that takes advantage of asynchronous time? An example of this might be ways they have of distributing information among leaders without having to be physically present.
Energy is about the capacity of leaders to focus their work and move it forward. On one level, if a leader is not getting enough rest or exercise they may find it difficult to bring energy to bear on dealing with a particular opportunity. Individual energy is important to individual leadership. Individual and collective leadership energy may also be about spirit, not in some metaphysical sense, but as attitude and capacity.
Information has to do with the leadership capacity to share information across boundaries in a way that it can be used to make decisions, take action or influence others.
Influence has to do with access to problem solving and decision making activities among the leaders.
Credibility has to do with the quality of trust and reliability that individual and collective leaders hold for each other.
Leadership resources are essential to the performance of leadership roles. What do you think?
- Russ Volckmann
Please send comments and suggestions to: russ@leadcoach.com
|
Subscribe to THE NEW LEAF, a weekly ezine for professionals who are ready to play their bigger game. Articles promote emotional, physical, mental and spiritual growth, encouraging graceful, audacious and creative responses to opportunity and transition. Published by internationally known Personal Coach, Molly Gordon. Subscribe today at www.mollygordon.com/subnews.html |
COACHING YOUNG LEADERS Free Trial Session: This one hour consultation can be done by phone or in person and includes a highly effective goal-setting exercise. I promise you will leave feeling energized and focussed on your new goals. Book a session. I dare you! Jo Miller, Life Coach |
When working with individual or groups of leaders explore the question of leadership resources with them. Help them identify the resources that are important to them. Test their assumptions and beliefs about leadership resources.
Then have them identify how best to use those resources in relation to leadership purpose and the achievement of business objectives.
–Russ Volckmann
I would value any stories and comments you can share with me about your experiences with this Leadership Coaching Tip Email: russ@leadcoach.com
Integrate the 3 Spheres of Responsible, Inspired Leadership through our Inspiration into Action executive seminars. We help leaders and organizations thrive in a rapidly changing global environment Barbara Chan Consulting Group |
June 8-9, 2001
Coaches@Work
Russ Volckmann will present on June 9 from 9 to 11 am. "Coaching Business Leaders: An Integral Approach", www.BayAreaCoaches.org
Join coaches throughout the San Francisco Bay Area for the first Bay Area Coaching Conference - Coaches@Work! Four ICF chapters have joined together to create this exciting learning event offering two days of sessions on topics ranging from corporate coaching and leadership to incorporating dance, body, and improv in coaching!
Airport Mariott , Burlingame, CA; Dates: June 8 - 9, 2001; Cost: $345
Conference Director: Helene Dublisky, 510.444-5211
Pre-conference workshops offered on Thursday, June 7
Each issue includes a summary of a publication related to leadership.
Bronwyn Fryer, "Leading Through Rough Times: An Interview with Novell’s Eric Schmidt," Harvard Business Review, May 2001.
Novell is like many other high tech companies who have been experiencing the roller coaster ride of business in this new millennium. In this interview Eric Schmidt talks about refocusing the company, keeping key talent and how he dealt with the culture of fear that he found at Novell.
Changing a culture takes more than power. It is an ongoing process that must be persistently pursued. His approach was to be present, to go deep within the organization and create opportunities for people with ideas to open up. He set up ways that innovative ideas could be championed and supported outside the formal hierarchy.
"You have to give people freedom to pursue their passions. That’s the only way to keep them focused and inspired and to ensure you’ll have a flow of new products to regain, retain, or grow ground in the market."
Culture is embedded in the organization’s systems. One is the reward system. This must be aligned with key objectives of the business. Another is to assure that the communications systems are getting the message to all employees about what the key business objectives are.
CEOs, particularly of high visibility companies are under a media microscope and are often the subject of negative media stories related to the performance of their business. "Real leadership involves taking the heat and staying focused on the way to achieve the desired outcomes."
|
Action Symphony |
Thanks for taking the time to consider this epublication in a world of data overload. For leaders, collaborators, consultants, academics and coaches alike, I welcome you to some ideas and a dialogue that may benefit us all. I hope you will contact me soon with your idea, reference or article. Suggestions on improvement are welcome.
Russ Volckmann, PhD
Coaching Leaders in Business and Life
Email: russ@leadcoach.com
Web: www.leadcoach.com, Tel: 831.333-9200, FAX: 831.656-0110
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please go to www.leadcoach.com.
Technical support and design: Virtual Silk®
Disclaimer:
This material is intended for informational and educational purposes only. Financial, Legal and Professional information is not Financial, Legal and Professional advice. You should see a Financial, Legal or Professional in the area in which you live if you need advice.
You are welcome to share the contents of this epublication. Please provide source information, including www.leadcoach.com.
Thank you.
© 2001-2006 Russ Volckmann. All Rights Reserved